D WAYNE LUKAS Q&A • THETDN.COM TUESDAY • JUNE 6, 2017 But those three guys, Laz, Charlie and Wheeler, would say, >Hey, sit down, cowboy,= and we=d visit. It was a transition, but as we started to win, I think we gained some respect. I At 81, D. Wayne Lukas is in the final chapter of his career, still remember one quote. Henry Moreno, who had been there energetic, driven and proud that he can work a 25-year-old into forever, they asked him, >What about the Quarter Horse guy?= the ground. Will there be another GI Kentucky Derby winner for and he said, >We=re all going to have to get up a little bit earlier him, a last hurrah, and what would he like his legacy to be once in the morning from now on.= his career is over? How does he feel about his mentee Todd Pletcher=s own superstardom and the notion that he will TDN: You must get this question all the time, but I have to ask: eventually break many of Lukas=s records? Have top owners the best horse you ever trained? given up on him because of his age? Those were among the questions Bill Finley asked Wayne Lukas last week on the WL: That does comes up all the time. You go through different Churchill Downs backstretch. eras and different time frames and you tend to find one for each era. Each of them had a certain quality. For instance, Landaluce had the most brilliant speed of any horse I ever trained. For consistency, you probably have to point to either Lady=s Secret or Serena=s Song. I was looking at Serena=s Song=s records just the other day. She was fourth in her first two outs. She had 38 outs, so you take those two off and now you=re down to 36 and she runs one-two in 32 out of the 36. And they=re all stakes. That=s unbelievable. You don=t hear of that anymore. Winning Colors, our first Derby winner...very special. They=re all pretty special within their own time frame. I was telling some people the other day about Thunder Gulch. If you tried to do now what I did with Thunder Gulch these days you=d get criticized pretty severely. We went Fountain of Youth, Florida Derby, Blue Grass, Kentucky Derby, Preakness, Belmont. Then we go up to the Swaps, come back and win the Travers. You throw that schedule out to somebody now and they=re going to say it can=t be done. D Wayne Lukas | A Coglianese TDN: When you made the switch from Quarter Horse Racing in TDN: Is there a horse that you are most proud of, in so far as the late seventies did you have any idea that you would have you believe that horse never would have been a top horse in the level of success you ultimately achieved? anyone else=s program? WL: No, not really, but I thought we=d win races. But I don=t WL: Without a doubt. Tabasco Cat. Put aside that he was the think anybody could have imagined we were going to do some one who ended Jeff=s career. He was tough. He was a difficult of the things we were able to do. I found this interesting: it took horse. He wins the Preakness, he wins the Belmont, we had a about two or three years for us to overcome the Quarter Horse helluva shot at the Kentucky Derby, but the horse next to him image and, even, actually, to overcome the basketball coach threw a fit. That horse was a complete challenge every day. image. We=re going along and we started winning pretty Some of the great trainers, like MacK Miller and others, would regularly right there in the first couple of years when we came watch what I did with him. I got a beautiful letter from MacK, over. It wasn=t all warm and fuzzy with everybody on the who said, >I watched what you did with that horse prior to the backside. Everybody said, >He=s just a Quarter Horse guy.= There Belmont and I=m going to tell you you did a great job. What a were three guys who accepted me for who I was and did so challenge that horse was.= He tried you every single day and you openly. They were Laz Barrera, Charlie Whittingham and Bob never really got comfortable with him. Even saddling him before Wheeler, all Hall of Famers. They were comfortable in their a big race was a problem. I think that was my best job and I did careers and very secure. I=d go through the box seat section and it for two of my dear friends, David Reynolds and Bill Young. some of the young guys didn=t hardly speak to me. D WAYNE LUKAS Q&A • THETDN.COM TUESDAY • JUNE 6, 2017 TDN: Next year is the 30th anniversary of your first Derby win, I started opening them, they were running about five to one with Winning Colors. What memories will that bring back? hate mail. I couldn=t believe it. Here I win this big race and all of America is really taking shots at me. Nonetheless, I thought it WL: The first time we ever ran in a Classic was in 1980 when we was a real accomplishment. John Nerud sent me that horse. ran Codex in the Preakness and beat Genuine Risk. I thought at They couldn=t train him down in Ocala. John said, >Give him to the time, this isn=t going to be that difficult. The next year, we the cowboy.= We won the Hollywood Derby and then the Santa ran in the Derby and we were third with, literally, an allowance Anita Derby. The problem was they hadn=t nominated him to the horse (Partez). Kentucky Derby. We think we=re going to win some TDN: There were a lot of great trainers around when you got of these and then started but, in terms of achievements, you quickly surpassed you go eight years all of them. You took things to a whole new level. How? Why? from 1980 to 1988 without WL: At that time in racing, the practice was, even the top winning and you trainers, would have 25-30 horses and would be stabled in just realize the one place. They=d be at Santa Anita, Hollywood, Belmont or difficulty of it. To wherever they were located and just take care of what was me, that was so sitting in front of them. I had the mindset that in order to keep special because I Lukas and Winning Colors | Horsephotos my clientele really happy, I had to realize that not all of my bought her and I owned part of her with Gene Klein. The whole horses were at the top level. Not everyone can play in the major thing just came together so beautifully. To do it with a filly...if I leagues; some guys go to Triple A. Not all of our horses are going had won it in >88 with a colt it would have been significant, but to fit at Santa Anita. I told Jeff, what we need to do is to try to to do it with a filly, which had only been done twice, was really make every horse useful. I decided to get some in different special. leagues. We=ll put 12-14 in Omaha, 20 at Monmouth Park, and so forth. Suddenly, we=re all across the country. There would be TDN: Let=s go back to the 1980 Preakness. Here you had just times when a horse would surprise us and get really good. pulled off a huge victory and you, and, more so, Angel Cordero Kiaran McLaughlin calls me from Monmouth and says I got this Jr., were cast as villains because of the way the race unfolded filly Open Mind, she just won easily today, send her to Belmont and because you beat America=s sweetheart. Did that spoil the right away. That=s how it worked. We started shuffling them joy of winning? around. We tried to make every horse profitable and our WL: Half of the population in America is female, so they were clientele got really behind us on that. They said we may have pulling for Genuine Risk. Already, 50% of the people were given too much or too little for one, but we=re all going to make against us before we even got to the gate. I=ve talked to Cordero them pay their way. That overall policy really helped us through a lot over the years. We felt that Jacinto [Vasquez] on Genuine >80s, >90s, through the 2000s. Risk did not want to bring her up the inside. I=ve never discussed this with Leroy Jolley, but we always thought that was part of her MO, that she did not want to go inside. So Cordero was determined to give Jacinto the inside. He gave him a little bit, a little bit more, a little bit more and just begged him to go inside. Jacinto wasn=t going to have any part of that. He kept going wider and wider. That aggravated the whole thing and it was very controversial. I remember winning it, thinking >this is special, you just don=t win the Preakness the first couple of years that you are training.= I remember going through the stable gate Sunday morning.